watch him; I'll get close enough without frightening anyone off. People always assume cabbies are watching the road.'
' 'Can't we put a man actually on the bridge? As a drunk, or a beggar?' Drummond's face was pale, his nostrils pinched, and there was a transparent look to the skin across the top of his nose and under his eyes.
'No.' Pitt felt no indecision. 'If there is anyone else there, we'll frighten the cutthroat off.'
Drummond tried one last tune. 'I gave Royce my word we'd protect him!''
There was nothing to say. They knew the dangers, and they understood that there was nothing else they could do.
For the next three nights the House rose early, and they kept watch, but with small hope of anything occurring. The fourth night the sky was heavy with unshed rain. The light was thin and darkness came early. The lamps along the Embankment looked like a string of fallen moons. The air smelled damp, and up and down the river the barges moved like wedges of darkness slicing the whispering, hissing water, with its broken reflections.
Under the statue of Boadicea with its magnificent horses, hooves flying, chariot careering forever in doomed heroic fight against the Roman invader dead two thousand years ago, a constable stood dressed as a sandwich vendor, his barrow in front of him, his neck muffled against the cold,
266
his fingers blue in spite of his mittens, eyes watchful, waiting for Garnet Royce and ready to move out and follow him the moment anyone approached. His truncheon was hidden under his overcoat, but his hand knew exactly where it was.
At the entrance to the House of Commons another constable, dressed as a footman, stood to attention as though waiting for his master to approach with some message, but his eyes were searching for Garnet Royce-and a flower seller.
At the far end of the bridge on the south bank three more constables waited; two on foot dressed as gentlemen with nothing better to do than idle away an evening looking for a little female company, and perhaps a trifle the worse for drink. The third constable drove a cab, which he kept standing twenty yards from the end of the bridge outside the first house on Bellevue Road, as though attending a fare who was visiting someone and might shortly return.
Micah Drummond stood in a doorway well out of the light on the Victoria Embankment and strained his eyes towards the New Palace Yard and the members of Parliament leaving. He could not make out any individuals, but he was as close as he dared be. He kept his face in shadow, his silk hat pulled forward and his scarf high round his chin. A passerby would have taken him for a gentleman who had celebrated rather too liberally and had stopped until his head cleared before going home. No one gave him a second glance.
Somewhere down the river towards the Pool of London the foghorns were sounding as the mist thickened and swept up with the incoming tide.
On the north bank, Pitt sat on the box of a second cab, on the Victoria Embankment just above the steps down to the water. He could see them all: the height of the cab seat gave him a vantage and also made his face less easy to recognize by a person on foot. He held the reins loosely in his hands while the horse shifted its weight restlessly.
Someone hailed him, and he called back, 'Sorry guv, got a fare.'
E67
The man grumbled that he could see none but did not bother to argue.
Minutes ticked by. The members were beginning to disperse. The constable sold some of his sandwiches. Pitt hoped he did not sell them all, or he would have no excuse to remain there. A vendor out on a night like this, at this hour, with no wares to sell, would draw suspicion.
Where was Royce? What on earth was he doing? Pitt could not blame him if his courage had failed; it would take a strong man to walk alone across Westminster Bridge tonight.
Big Ben struck quarter past eleven.
Pitt was longing to get down and go and look for Royce. If he had left by another way and gone west to Lambeth Bridge hi a cab, they might wait here all night!
'Cabby! Twenty-five
